New figures show UK music firms are earning a growing share of revenues from activities other than the selling of CDs and digital downloads - licensing songs, merchandising, tours and Guitar Hero help grow sales. Since online music stores entered the mainstream in 2004, consumers have bought more than 200 million downloads but firms will make increasingly more money from activities such as licensing its music for commercial use, such as TV adverts, films and games. Companies are also pinning their hopes on so-called “360 degree deals”. They see merchandising, touring, use of artists’ logos and sponsorship as potential money-spinners. You knew all this - you heard it here first with my new best friend Mattieu from Warner Music.

A leaked internal memo to maths and computing staff at Manchester Metropolitan University has revealed they were urged to increase the number of top-level degree grades they awarded in order to compete with rival institutions. The number of students getting a first class degree has more than doubled in the last ten years (firsts and 2:1s make up 61%) A leading academic spoke out recently to say that he felt standards were slipping with lecturers under pressure to mark “positively” and turn a blind eye to plagiarism (that’s what it says here anyway). This is particularly the case for overseas students (or cash cows as they are also known). With stories like this in the press, the weight of a good degree has to be supported with some other experiences if you are chasing your dream job. Work placements have never looked so important…